Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-04-18

upon them crying: "The sword of the
Lord and of Gideon" Secrecy of plot
and execution are wrong only wnen the
object and ends are nefarious. Every
family is secret society, every
business firm and every banking and in
surance institution. Those men who
have no capacity TO keep secret are I'M
fit for positions of trust anywhere. There
are thousands of men whose vital need is
culturing a capacity to keep a secret.
Men talk too much ard women, too.
There is time to keep silence as well as
8 time to speak.
Although not belonging to any of the
great secret societies about which there
has been so much violent discussion l
have only words of praise for those asso-
Citations which have for their object the
maintenance of right against wrong or
the reclamation Of inebriates, or, like the
score of mutual benefit societies called by
different names, that provide temporary
relief for widows and orphans and for
men incapaCitated by sickness or acct
dent from earning & livelihood. Had 1t
not been for the large number OF secret
labor organizations in this country mo-
nOpoly would long ago have. under it's
ponderous wheels, ground the lab0ring
men who want the whole earth to them
selves would have it before this had it
not been for the banding together of
great observation-disclosures. And, Whilewe
deplore many things that have been done
by them, their existence is 8 necessity
and their legitimate sphere distinctly
pointed out by the providence CT God.
Such organizations are trying to dismiss
oil in fa
vOr of anarchy and social chaos. They
will gradually cease anything like tyr
rany over their members and will forbid
violent interference with any mans work
whether he belongs to their union or
is outside of it, and will declare their
disgust with any such rule as that passed
in England by the Manchester Bricklayers'
Association, which says any man found
running or working beyond regular speed
shall be fined , shillings and pence for
the first Offense, shillingS for the second,
10 shillings for the third, and, if still per-
sisting, shall be dealt with as the COM
mitCee think proper. There are secret So
Cieties in our colleges that have letters Of
the Greeka lphabet for their nomenclature,
and their members are at the very front
in scholarship and irreproacheble in NOR
ais, while there are others the scene of
carOusal, and they gamble, and they
drink, and they graduate knowing hun
dTed times more about sin than they do
of geometry and SophOcles. In other
words, secret societies, like individuals,
are good or bad, are the means of moral
health or Of temporal and eternal damna-
ton. All good people recognize the vice
Of slandering an individual, but many do
not see the sin of Slandering an Orga3iZa-
ton.
There are old secret societies in this
and other countries, some of them Centu-
ries Old, which have been widely de-
nOunced as immoral and damaging IN
their influence, yet I have hundreds OF
personal friends who belong to them,
friends who are Consecrated to
God, pillars in the church,
faithful in all relations of life, examples
of virtue and piety. They are the kind
of friends whom | would have for my
executors if am so happy as to leave
anything for my household at the time of
deCease, and they are the men whom l
would have carry me out to the last sleep
when l am dead. You cannot make me
believe that they would belong 50 bad in
'stitutions They are the men who would
stamp on anything iniQuit0us, and l
would certainly rather take their testi-
mOny IN regard to such societies than the
testimony of those who, having been
sworn in as members, by their assault upon
the society confess themselves perjuT-
ers. One of these secret societies gave
for the relief of the sick in 1873, in this
country, 81, 490,274 Some Of these So
Cieties have poured a very heaven OF sun
shine and benedlctiOn into the home of
suffering, Several Of them are founded
on fidelity TO good citizenship aIJ the
Bible. | have never taken one Ct their
degrees. They might give me the grip
thousand times, and | would not recOg-
nize it. T am ignorant of their pass
words, and I must Judge entirely from the
outside. But Christ has given Us q rule by
which we may judge not only all iudivid-
uals but all societies, secret and open.
"By their fruits ye shall know them"
Bad societies make bad men. Good sOCie-
ties make good men. A bad man will not
stay in q good society. A good man viii
not stay in bad society. Then try ali
secret societies by two or three rIles.
Test the first: Their influence on home,
if you nave home. That wife soon loses
her influence over her husband who nery-
Ously and foOlishly LOOKS upon all evening
absence as an assault on QOmeStlClty.
How are the great enterprises of reform,
and art, and literature, and benefcence
and public veal to be carried on if every
man is to have his world bounded on one
side by his front door step, and on the
other side by his back window, knowing
nothing higher than his own attic or lower
than his own cellar? That wife who be
comes jealous of her husbands attention
to art or literature or religion or charity
is breaking her own scepter OF conjugal
power. l know an instance where wife
thought that her husband was giving too
many nights to Christian service, to char
table service, to prayer meetings, and to
religious convocation. She systemstical-
ly decOyed hlm away until now he attends
no church, waits upon no charitable insti
tuition, and is on a rapid way to destruc
ton, his morals gone, his money gone,
and fear his soul gone. Let any Chris
tian wife rejoice when her husband con-
socrates evenings to theService of human
ity, and of God, or charity, or art, or any
thing elevating.
But let no man sacrifice home life to
secret society life as MANY do | can